School of College English Teaching and Studies (SCETS) of Nanyang Normal University (NYNU) was established in 2015 following a reorganization of NYNU’s subdivisions. Supported by the CPC Committee and Administrative Bodies of NYNU, SCETS has been adhering to the principle of improving the quality of college English teaching at NYNU and enhancing our students’ overall competencies and skills in English use. Responding to the requirements for college English teaching reform and taking into account the characteristics of foreign language teaching at NYNU, our leadership, faculties and staff take it upon ourselves to renew our teaching approaches and strategies, update our teaching modes, as well as explore and put in place new laws of teaching and learning, so as to bring about enhancement in the quality of education and classroom teaching-learning processes.
SCETS is mainly responsible for teaching English to NYNU’s undergraduate and graduate students not majoring in English, a majority of whom are at freshman and sophomore levels. The course of College English is a required basic course for undergraduate students. Through the instruction of intensive English reading and English listening and speaking, a majority of our students are expected to meet the general requirements as set in the College English Syllabus, namely, acquiring “a strong ability in reading and a certain degree of proficiency in listening, speaking, writing and translating”. Our students’ English proficiency and competence in cross-cultural communication derived from our classroom instruction will lay a good foreign language foundation for their future study and work. With the deepening reform of college English teaching in China, the leadership of SCETS has launched precise plans for the development of our team and has set clearer and more pragmatic requirements for college English teaching reform at NYNU. The detailed development plans, once put into full implementation, are bound to inject new vigor and vitality into SCETS’s future development.
In the course of College English teaching, we, the faculty members of SCETS, are fully aware that college English teaching is an organic part of higher education. Guided by foreign language teaching theories and assisted by various teaching modes and teaching means, College English teaching is an integral system of education which takes as its main content the instruction of practical knowledge and application skills in English language use, the employment of meaningful learning approaches and the cultivation of cross cultural communication awareness. Driven by a shared commitment to quality teaching, all our faculty members are required to prepare lessons and write teaching plans meticulously before class, impart knowledge and solve students’ doubts tirelessly during class, as well as check and correct students’ homework and give them feedback timely after class.
The leadership of SCETS prioritizes college English teaching as its main task, and since its establishment, it has been convening targeted meetings to discuss how to reform college English teaching methods, apply top of the line multimedia technology to undergraduate English classrooms, and select textbooks and teaching materials appropriate to students’ cognitive levels, linguistic competence and interests. All the faculty members are able to handle well the relationship between teaching and other work. Responding to the Ministry of Education’s call for reforming China’s college English teaching, our faculty members are actively experimenting with up-to-date academic concepts and pedagogical technologies in their classes with a view to boosting the quality of English education at NYNU. Meanwhile, our faculty members are encouraged to carry out academic research on college English teaching and reform on their own initiatives and inform their teaching with what comes out of their research. SCETS is made up of three teaching and research sections, namely, Basic English Teaching and Research Section, Integrated English Teaching and Research Section, and Extended English Teaching and Research Section. SCETS currently has seven multimedia and computer-assisted classrooms for aural-oral training in English. Ours is a young team brimming with vigor and vitality, daring to take up challenges, aspiring for innovation and pursuing excellence. Our faculty members, with their toil and moil, have been working with tremendous determination and enthusiasm to enhance the quality of foreign language teaching and to make their share of contributions to the development of NYNU.
The faculty members of SCETS are proficient in using modern educational technologies to prepare lessons and carry out multimedia-assisted instruction in their classes, thus spearheading the modernization of teaching means at NYNU. SCETS endeavors to enhance its faculty members’ professional expertise and upgrade their English teaching skills by encouraging them to build a solid theoretical foundation for their teaching through the adoption of advanced teaching concepts, teaching methodologies and teaching means. As a result, our students’ scores and passing rates in the national-level College English Test Band Four (CET-4) and College English Test Band Six (CET-6) have been on the rise year by year. Besides, many of our students have been recipients of the Grand and First Prizes in the yearly National English Competition for College Students (NECCS), which puts NYNU in the front ranks among its peers both in and outside Henan Province. All the faculty members of SCETS are earnestly seeking to synthesize their classroom teaching and academic research by incorporating theories into their actual classroom practices, which has achieved fruitful results.
